The Revisions were adopted last spring, and they introduce some important changes to China's environmental law governance system. But there are also likely to be limits, especially due to capacity limitations and governance system weaknesses, to how quickly change will result. Nevertheless, the legislative reform measure is a positive sign both for China's environmentalist civil society as well as the progressive green elements in the government.
[There is also erratum to the piece - in section III on Public Interest Litigation, the piece should have indicated that "social organisations that are registered at the municipal government level" or at a higher governmental level have standing to bring cases under Article 58. -- update - Swiss Re has been able to fixed this, and the current version is now correct.]
The piece is also available on the main Center website at
http://cgd.swissre.com/global_dialogue/topics/Environmental_liability/
